Eno spoke of culture as the "lubricant" of society's evolution, while warning that in England and other countries it is being regarded as "less and less important."
"Nobody really knows what the arts are for," he said. The arts, he said, are treated as a sort of "luxury add-on" Eno told the crowd. "Once you deal with the difficult problems, like earning a living and getting planes to fly and trains to run on time, then you can have a bit of art, sort of like the ice cream at the end of the meal."
"What I want to convince you of is that that isn't the way it works at all," he said. "That the only way that we can continue to cooperate and work together as a human society, and as the community that we are, is with lots and lots and lots of culture and art.
"I want to convince you that it is the most important thing you can do."
Eno on culture
Naviarhaiku128 - Evening slight return
Here's the bassline that inspired a previous Naviar Haiku track, which ended up with an orchestra.
Another reason is it's semi-acoustic, which means I can pick it up and hear ideas quickly. And the flatwound strings are great when I'm out of practice because my fingers don't need thick callouses to run up and down the fretboard.
You can also hear I've doubled the guitar part and panned it to the sides with delay. There's also a bit of reverb all round.
Naviarhaiku128 - Evening light
I took it as an opportunity to record a bassline I'd been riffing on for the the last week or so. Then I got distracted.
First I thought I'd add chords behind it and when I started figuring them out I realised my bassline broke key. Then I recorded the revised chords as MIDI and started experimenting with orchestral instruments, and decided my bassline would be too busy for the track I'd arranged.
So the track here is one version of the tune. I might yet record the bassline over the weekend.
Naviarhaiku127 - Ink-black birds scatter
For a while I considered what sort of instrumentation would convey the sense of birds taking flight. I also considered recording a new version of my song Raucous Chorus, which was written about the galahs I hear most days.
There are a few different birds in my part of the world but not so many during winter. I'd admired the cockatoos while visiting Narrandera recently, which is on the Murrumbidgee River. My town isn't, so we don't see them.
The instrument that I thought would convey the squawk of galahs didn't seem right to suggest the graceful idea of flight. So in the end I decided to record the birds as the flew around my suburb one morning. You can also hear the distinctive 'laugh' of a kookaburra near the start.
Memorable art
Memorable photographs have this quality of openness. They don’t bring closure, necessarily, to the moment or internally, they allow viewers to bring their their own thoughts to bear.
If you substitute 'photograph' in the above quote with 'music' and 'viewers' with 'listeners', I think it's applicable. In fact, it's probably applicable to a variety of arts.
I'd been thinking how good pop music expresses a vulnerability the invites the listener to share it, but it's probably the case that good art invites an emotional response.
I wonder if allowing "viewers to bring their own thoughts to bear" is an appeal to their ego. A kind of way to make them feel like they're part of the artwork.
Naviarhaiku126 - rowing through
I can't think of having sailed on sea but I started to imagine the movement of the waves when I layered up the 17 takes on my four-string guitar from the Junto this week.
In it I could hear the shifting rhythms of a waterway.
The idea to layer multiple takes also comes from the "layered sameness" Junto project that led me to produce a remarkable result. I was surprised at how good that sounded because throughout every step I was sure it would sound terrible.
Disquiet Junto 0231 Field Complement
It was exciting to see the Junto return to an assignment from 2013 that involved creating a field recording and then composing an accompaniment.
The track I recorded in 2013 was one that ended up on my album WHILE and I considered creating a complementary track when I recorded my kids getting onto the school bus this morning, as they'd gotten off the bus in the original.
Then I spent time making a few other recordings this morning and I liked the sounds at the traffic lights best. These are the only traffic lights in the town of Leeton and there are lots of trucks on the roads, which sounded good on a wet day.
Now I should probably explain why my track is about twice the recommended length. It's because I didn't want to make it to be shorter. I delayed the decision to edit by pressing ahead with recording the accompanying four-string guitar, then decided the take sounded good as it was.
The rain meant I didn't take notes during the recording. Instead I made notes afterwards in the comfort of my home and followed the timings as best I could.
I tried a few chord progressions before settling on the parts I've recorded. As I played I imagined how cars speed up to try and make it through the traffic lights, adjusting the tempo accordingly.
I think I made nearly one and a half dozen takes before feeling like I'd gotten it right. These might get layered up since that worked well on a couple of earlier Junto projects. (Did this. Hear it here.) The take used was fourth-last.
Not sure about the production. I think the levels might be a bit loud for the style of the track. I'll adjust that if it ends up on an album but I haven't compiled one since AND in 2014.
Naviarhaiku125 - rhythmic woodpecker
So it wasn't until Monday that I decided to try and write a song. The rhythmic quality of haiku would normally have sent me to my drums but I've had to pack those away so we can use the fireplace again.
I looked for woodpeckers on Youtube to get an idea of how they sound and was taken with their appearance. Then decided to experiment with a trap drumbeat, for no real reason except that I thought it might be interesting.
Then the chords I settled on were played through woodwind samples in Live to acknowledge the "woodland symphony" aspect of the poem.
I'm not completely happy with how the drums sit in the mix but am unable to give it any more time. One thing I wasn't sure about but is growing on me is the 4/6 measure of the loops, where it takes six bars rather than four to resolve.
Paul Mahern on music
Music is the most important form of communication, period. Not to get too spiritual, but all existence is a vibration. All of everything is vibrating. Music is a concrete analogy of the existence of everything. We can hear it and experience it with our ears, and it communicates to us on so many levels; whether we understand it or not, whether we’re aware of it or not.
That three-minute pop song that makes you feel a little bit better on the way to your dead- end job as you’re tapping your foot in the car? That’s fucking it! Nothing else does that for me. Art can do that; architecture can do that. But when you’re playing with the vibration of music, it doesn’t require your conscious participation. It can be going on in the background. It can just be playing in the car, and the next thing you know, you’re tapping your foot. Visual art – to really and truly appreciate it – you’ve at least got to look at it, and you have to be open to it. But the vibration of music doesn’t require your conscious participation.
It’s reaching out to you.
Disquiet Junto 0229 Fourth Worldizing
This week the Disquiet Junto incorporates a technique used by Walter Murch.
The idea is to exaggerate the reverb of a space by recording playback sped up with a recorder that slows it down again. I think the result is meant to stretch the resonance of the space, while keeping the original recording relatively unpitched.
It reminded me of a technique I'd tried that's attributed to Alvin Lucier in 'Sitting in a room', where you record room reverb on room reverb on room reverb. That didn't really get the bell-like tone described in my effort.
Similarly the result this week wasn't as described and I think both examples share a common failing in using digital recording rather than analogue tape.
When Marc proposed the Junto I began thinking of what vocal recording I'd use. I suggested this on his Facebook post and he replied that an instrument could be interesting. This led me to drums as I was thinking I might get a big 'When the levee breaks'-type reverb.
Then it occurred to me that stretching a digital recording would produce a bitcrushing-like effect, as stretching data is a lot less musical than slowing analogue.
I persisted though, curious to hear the effect. Using drums recently recorded for the track 'A friend's eye...', I used the Ocean Way reverb that mimics the famous recording studio. My thinking was that it was a lot less time-consuming than setting up speakers to record, so if it worked then it'd be more likely that I'd use it as in-the-box technique.
The result of speeding up the drums to double-time, adding reverb and then slowing the recording down did create a kind of bitcrushing effect. So I thought it would be interesting to contrast this result with drums at normal speed and also at half-time.
In the resulting remix of my track, the drums sped up with reverb and then slowed down open and close the track. In the chorus you can hear drums with reverb added at normal speed.
In the middle section, you can hear drums with reverb added while stretched to twice their length. The result in the latter is snappy, particularly when contrasted with the big sound in the chorus. There's something in their sound that reminded me of drums sampled by The Chemical Brothers, which would make sense as their early stuff probably sampled and sped up breaks from funk like those used in hiphop.
I used gating on all three drum parts to remove much of the original room ambience. The two bass guitar parts were added to give a song structure to the result and, hopefully, take attention away from my drumming. (In the original song I layered three takes on the drums and then added a lot of reverb to hide inconsistencies in my playing.)
Finally, I added a reverb shimmer to the bass part. Then I added a resonator effect that fades in during the track to add more interest. The result sounds like the drums get closer then move away again.
Naviarhaiku 124 - North of the mountains
I'd been playing around with chords on the bass guitar and this morning settled on the key F#.
This is the third take, so it wasn't entirely improvised but I wasn't at the point of following an established song yet.
In Ableton Live I added a couple of reverbs, one to mimic a room to fatten the tone and another for the high-pitched ambience. I also used EQs to filter the lower frequencies, which can be overpowering even when playing higher notes.
Naviarhaiku123 - In his eyes
I came up with the chord progression last weekend while lying around in my tent while camping.
There are lyrics I'd written for the song but my voice is still croaky from a recent 'flu.
Three drums takes, three acoustic guitar takes, two bass takes and two electric guitar takes are layered up in this recording. All takes were unedited other than adding them together.
Disquiet Junto 0228 Three Mics
The Disquiet Junto this week asked for a recording of a single source using three microphones. I opted to use an electric toothbrush through three very different mics: a stereo Rode NT4, a blender motor and a contact microphone.
The stereo mic is heard first and, aside from my partner typing and my heavy breathing, it captures the toothbrush being switched on and moving around a bit.
The blender motor captures the electromagnetic field of the toothbrush, mostly a high-pitched whine of the motor. It drops in pitch a little as I push the spinning part against the inside of the coil, creating resistance.
The contact microphone is a deeper sound as it is capturing the vibrations directly from the chassis of the toothbrush. In effect this bypasses the air molecules that would normally come between a source and a microphone, so in a way it places the listener's head against the sound source.
These were all treated to a little reverb, mostly to give a sense of stereo to the mono sound sources, as well as EQ and limiting and compression.
Fairlight Fame
Disquiet Junto 0225 Serial Composition
I like these sorts of assignments as they often force me to come up with something different.
This week I wasn't sure I'd get a chance to record a piece, as I was assisting with a planting outside Matong.
On the way there I stopped at a park and recorded a sculpture with a view to using it in the Junto. The more I thought about it though, the less the sculpture seemed appropriate.
Then on Sunday, while I was looking at old farm machinery at the property where I was camping. It occurred to me that there were various objects that looked like the symbols in the painting.
On Monday evening I selected recordings based on the object looking like the symbol and edited the parts together. I decided to add the lines like layers and to offset their start, so that everything didn't hit the same beats.
My washing machine plays metal
After making music with my fridge last week, I tried jamming with my washing machine but was no match for the speed at which it beats.
Naviarhaiku120 - Momentary halt
The death of Prince made me reflect on his musicianship and, while I've been setting myself the challenge of playing single takes for recordings recently, I thought it'd be a good time to try doing this across multiple instruments.
Once again I wrote a few riffs on my four-string guitar. The recent Junto projects that have used multiple takes layered up led me to try two drum recordings and two guitar recordings. My timing drifted a lot in the former but I was able to smooth it out a bit with reverb and gating.
Only one bass recording though as it gets way too muddy when I try to layer those up. I'd like to add vocals but haven't time this weekend.
Burroughs on artists
Via Facebook
While William is talking about visual art in the quote above, I've been thinking that this also applies to sound.
When you consider how sound designers will layer up different sources or synthesise specific sounds to get a result, you get something approaching creating a new sound while evoking a variety of others.
Which reminds me of Harrison Young's line about the power of metaphor.
A little further into the Frigid Air
Occasionally a Junto project leads to a collaboration and this weekend it's been exciting to bounce the Cold Embrace track 'Frigid Air' back and forth with Detritus Tabu, who earlier added a Morphine-cover to my Morphine-influenced Junto.
The lyrics come from a poem by Ocean Vuong:
A Little Closer to the Edge
Young enough to believe nothing
will change them, they step, hand-in-hand,
into the bomb crater. The night full
of black teeth. His faux Rolex, weeks
from shattering against her cheek, now dims
like a miniature moon behind her hair.
In this version the snake is headless — stilled
like a cord unraveled from the lovers’ ankles.
He lifts her white cotton skirt, revealing
another hour. His hand. His hands. The syllables
inside them. O father, O foreshadow, press
into her — as the field shreds itself
with cricket cries. Show me how ruin makes a home
out of hip bones. O mother,
O minutehand, teach me
how to hold a man the way thirst
holds water. Let every river envy
our mouths. Let every kiss hit the body
like a season. Where apples thunder
the earth with red hooves. & I am your son.
Disquiet Junto 0224 Cold Embrace
The Disquiet Junto assignment this week focuses on something that's been on my mind for a while and that's the hum of a fridge.
I remember that it was after spending long stretches listening to 'the wires' that I'd find myself grooving along to the sound of the refrigerator. At the time I wondered if it was because they hummed in a similar key. Both seem to work with G.
My current fridge is a few years old and less noisy than some I've had. When the Junto email arrived I waited for a moment when the fridge motor started humming to try a few chords. D minor seemed nice.
The following day I set about trying to record the fridge and was frustrated by the results. It was too quiet for my Zoom H4n with a Rode NT4, so I tried the high gain setting with the Rode VideoMic on my Nikon D5100.
I also tried putting the contact mic higher up on the back of the fridge and found it gave a different tone and a key that seemed to be a deeper C.
Today I experimented with a few chords before settling on something that sorta alternates between D and C, I think. My partner suggested it needed sustain but the cycling of the fridge motor suggested something faster.
So I took the idea of layering up parts from last week's Junto but set a metronome at 144 beats per minute, as that was what Ableton Live thought was the tempo for one of the contact mic recordings. Then I staggered the parts and added Valhalla Shimmer to fade in through the piece.
I like that it inverts the way I normally hear my fridge. The hum of the motor is in the foreground, while the guitar sounds more distant and then the reflections increase -- much like the hum of the fridge seems to grow louder.
Naviarhaiku118 - Over the meadow
There's a bit of a Radiohead vibe, I think.
When I started composing I decided to return to my four-string guitar, which hasn't been used since the ice in a glass Junto earlier this year.
I've been experimenting with the fourth string and recently settled on DDAE, after using DDAF#. This track also has some noodling on the 'Nashville' tuned guitar that I've used a bit lately, as well as a five-string bass.
The drums seem like they could work better for developing the dynamics of the track. In places the fills and opening of the high-hat is kinda arbitrary.
Anyway, it's an interesting result. The production could use a bit more work but I need to move on for now. I like how the string squeak in the opening arpeggio develops a kinda quack-like quality when compressed.
Disquiet Junto 0223 Layered Sameness
This Junto has a self-explanatory title in Layered Sameness, although in my case it was more like 'layered similars' as there were pronounced variations in the argeggios I played:
Record multiple, slightly varying takes on the same looped composition in this project by Monome’s Brian Crabtree.
In a way the track has echoes of the E minor I've fixated on fingering this week. Recorded on a 'Nashville' tuned guitar that was also recorded on Thursday as Ashmore Reef.
For the Junto I cut a corner and used the mic input on the camera to record the guitar, and the noise floor rose considerably -- even after EQ -- across 11 takes.
I arrived at the Em to G and C to A after thinking about Dave Graham's tips that I'd read earlier today. The mid-range overlap of the tuning works well not to overpower the multiple takes. I like how arpeggios with 'Nashville' tuning become more like melodies as they hit the same note across chords. Notes that would be an octave apart using a standard tuning.
The parts were layered in Live with compression on a few channels and reverb smears it further. The two longest takes were of a similar length and I panned them hard left and right with compression so they'd stand out throughout. They're slow to follow the chord progression and it creates a slowing sort of feeling. Overall it's a good result, I think.
Naviarhaiku117 - The vast kelp forest
The image of kelp swaying under the waves was firmly in my mind as I settled on this lovely E minor chord that I'd learned recently.
Chatting with Marco at Naviar Records via email recently about their YouTube channel led me to record a video, although I'm feeling very out of the habit as the takes were rusty and the footage underwhelming.
The title came about via association. First I was thinking how the track was recorded on a guitar using a 'Nashville' tuning. The air pollution in the Riverina has been shocking, so the working title was Ashville.
Then, to tie the song back to the sea, I was thinking of Ashmore Reef. I've never visited that reef, so I don't know if it has much kelp, but it used to be in the news as the site of refugee arrivals before the Australian Government stopped reporting on the subject.
I think the melancholy of the song works as the notion of waves reflects both the sea and the misery of human traffic.
Disquiet Junto 0222 Bounded Foundation
Been a challenge to find to time to work on the Junto this week but, as it was, less was more.
Initially I raided some chords I'd used for a Naviar project and then added a slightly wonky rhythm at a different tempo on Saturday night. On Sunday the power was off for work in the area but I recorded drums, then decided they didn't work.
When power returned, I set to work to see if I could improve on what I had but grew frustrated. As I spent more time experimenting with additional elements, the track sounded worse.
So what you hear is largely what I'd arranged in the first couple of hours, with some EQ in places to avoid a muddy bottom.
Rock Out!
Wrote and recorded a rock song today. I think it needs lyrics but haven't had an idea yet.
Also need to get back to practicing my drumming.
Naviarhaiku116 - melting windshield frost
Anyway, I took my cue from the description of warm guitar and used the part I'd recorded for the Junto this week.
Disquiet Junto 0221 Morning Music
This week the Disquiet Junto gave a nod to Easter with the direction to compose a piece "you’d like to imagine other people would want to wake up to. This isn’t “shock alert” music. It’s quiet, peaceful, refreshing."
My first thought was to remember a dream from earlier in the week where I was backstage at the Grammys watching a performer who sounded a bit like Green Velvet accompanied by dozens of women in American football uniforms on stage under spotlights.
Then I decided that wasn't the right approach. I reflected on the sound I like to awaken me and realised its my partner's voice. One of the wonderful things she does is address me in a measured way when she wants a response while I'm asleep. For years I had girlfriends who would take out their frustrations with my snoring in a variety of short-tempered ways. When I started sleeping with Jo she would put a hand gently on my back and ask in a soft voice for me to roll on my side and I would, usually without needing to awaken.
But I realised that a recording of my partner prompting me to wake up wasn't what the Junto wanted this week.
It's great to hear how different participants approached the project. There are many beaut tracks.
Bach in the church
Good Friday is the annual 'Action Day' at the Museum and this year is the 45th anniversary of the first Good Friday when the Park was opened to the public and thousands of people came to have a look.
Thousands of people visited today and saw machinery in action, such as a rice harvester named 'Gertie' invented by an enterprising farming couple in 1943 and a Clayton and Shuttleworth portable steam engine from 1905.
Among the many activities was a small contribution from my musical identity, the Wendy Carlos-inspired Bach piece I produced for a Disquiet Junto a couple of years ago. This track was looped in St Johns and it gave me a thrill each time I walked past the building to hear the low notes rumble.
Naviarhaiku115 - You know where you are?
These chords have been on my mind this week. I've been exploring on the guitar and this progression has been taking shape, so I was keen to use the prompt from Naviar to record it.
Artwork embedded in the Soundcloud link by Jo Roberts.
Disquiet Junto 0220 Rhythmic Arrhythmic
The instructions for the Junto this week come from Dennis DeSantis, whose book Making Music: 74 Creative Strategies for Electronic Music Producers I've read about and looked at the online material.
The direction was to use short loops of arrhythmic material to find rhythms and I'd initially thought of the remix I'd made of a field recording from outside Wagga. That process drew on my experiences remixing playgrounds, to use suitable transients to make beats and also a bassline from a passing bee.
One thing I've observed is that gating loops makes it easy to focus on a transient, as it removes the background noise (and can sometimes even create the transient). Then the question is where you put the starting point for the loop, as this will determine whether the transient sits on or off the beat of the rhythm.
As a result, it's fairly straightforward to create a beat from most material. The interesting variations come from the loop selection and how the resulting transients swing as a rhythm. For this reason I resisted the initial idea to use a recording of me 'playing' an object as it mean I made the rhythm.
So I ended up thinking it would be interesting to make a track from the recording of the Rice Co-op that was made for the Junto proposed by Kate Carr. The occassional hisses seemed ideal and the passing mosquitoes were good too. I also found there was some deep rumble, likely from a breeze.
Using the gated hisses, mosquitoes and rumble to create a rhythm, I then accentuated it with a programmed drum machine in Ableton Live. Then I jammed on a few bass riffs to give the track a song structure, which develops from F# minor to A major I think.
Naviar Haiku 7
It's an older song called 'Windy Bases' that was recorded around the time I made my track for the last Shinobi Cuts Remix Chain and sharing a glitchy aesthetic -- possibly even the same bass part.
I'm a bit surprised it was chosen for this release but I've come to realise I have a different relationship to my music than a listener does. It's like how Eno explains his concept of 'scenius', in that artists aren't necessarily the best judges of their own work.
Naviarhaiku114 - Where do you come from?
I'd been experimenting with different ideas but the haiku's image of flying upwards gave shape to the tempo change. I tried to convey that feeling when a plane is speeding down the runway, readying for lift-off.
There were some words that came to mind too but I decided not to explore lyrics this week. I was going to record it on an acoustic guitar but there's been too much noise.
The idea of looking beyond national identities speaks to me for many reasons. I also was prompted to think about it when a friend mentioned on Facebook that when he gets asked where he's from, he's started looking blank and answering "Earth".
Image added to Soundcloud comes from here.
Disquiet Junto 0219 Breath Dance
The Junto this week was proposed by Paolo Salvagione and involves creating an audio backdrop for a piece of choreography that utilises only the sound of soft breaths.
When I started thinking about manipulating breath recordings, I wanted something that would be more interesting than heavy breathing close to a microphone. Then I remembered the recording made while having sex earlier this year.
That piece came about because I'd found a spank I'd uploaded to Youtube had become my most popular video. I'd shared that as it had been remixed into an acid sorta tune for a Junto. I'd also been reading how William S. Burroughs used audio to create spells and I was keen to get the result to sound like I was with two women.
So I went through the recording and selected snippets that featured breathing. In the process I got a few moans and groans, as well as a low sound that might've been a passing car. I made loops of these, then pitched the passing car into a couple of harmonic progressions. It was C, so I made it go C-E-A-G and also A-G. I changed the pitch of a couple of the other loops but didn't push them very far either.
Naviarhaiku113 - In the clear night
The positive response to a previous field recording, led me back outside with a microphone. My partner is away with our car, so I didn't get to visit an actual forest. Instead I decided that, if urban jungles are a thing, then I'd capture a suburban forest.
I liked the idea that moonlight reveals a hidden orchestra, so I started thinking about revealing hidden sounds. I've been experimenting with EMF and there's a power substation nearby that must produce a lot of that, but it didn't suggest an orchestra. And I'd already recorded a Naviar track recently using an EMF recording.
Then I remembered a homebrew software I'd looked at years ago called sniff_jazzbox. Back then there was only one wireless network on the property where I lived and it was running a dial-up internet connection, so it was quite underwhelming. It would chime a piano note every few seconds but I always meant to try it in a city.
These days even my small suburb has oodles of wi-fi networks. I took a ride on my pushbike yesterday and listened to nearly two dozen just going around the block. There was one section in particular that sounded nice, so I returned there early this morning.
Before the sun rose I also recorded crickets in my backyard, as well as some video of the tree-lined streets under the crescent moon.
This afternoon I've used Ableton Live to convert the 'sniffed' wi-fi into MIDI, which I've then used to trigger Ableton's orchestral samples. The lead instrument is a cello, which is supported by a viola section and both string and wind sections. These have been exported via UAD's Ocean Way reverb, as well as other lush effects. I added a Novation V-Station bass, as well as the backyard crickets.
Disquiet Junto 0218 Sound Passage
The Junto this week was "guest-crafted" by Kate Carr, an Australian recording artist whose writing I know from Cyclic Defrost and whose recordings I've seen Mark enthuse about on Disquiet.com.
My understanding of the assignment was it involved exploring proximity. Specifically how sounds change based on distance, not so much through the proximity effect where they're exaggerated by types of microphones, rather, how they change through the landscape.
One of the distinct sounds of Leeton, the town I've been living in since 2009, is the Rice Co-operative facility. It's part of SunRice, the global brand whose headquarters is still based here, as well as being a major employer.
When I first moved here I lived across the carpark from Woolworths and I mistook the hum of the Rice Co-op as originating from their supermarket. About a year later I moved closer to the Co-op and realised the hum originated from the massive facility that runs almost continuously.
The Co-op is also brightly lit at night and I've often taken photographs of it, see here and here. It also can be heard in my soundtrack for the Reimagining The Murrumbidgee exhibition. So it seemed a good candidate for the Junto this week.
I explored proximity by moving away from the Co-op in three recordings, starting at the Railway Avenue end of Brady Way and moving toward the disused train station. Each location contributes about 40 seconds to the final two-minute piece.
When I got to the spot where I wanted to record, there was a diesel train warming up behind me. The intermittent hisses from its engine seemed to respond to those hisses from the Rice Co-op. I considered recording it but decided it would mess with my video, as I could only show one side of their conversation.
The first location is opposite a building that is closed during the day but often open at night. I suspect they close it during the day to hide that it's packed with dog food. You can smell it at times but I often think it's better to smell dog food than to live near somewhere like the Cadbury factory in Birmingham and constantly crave chocolate.
The other week when my air-conditioner broke and the heat made sleeping difficult, my son and I walked past the open door early one morning and he observed that the brand was 'working dog food' or something. He suggested it was for dogs who wore ties and collars, rather than the kelpies and blue heelers used to round up sheep. It's a cute image.
You can hear in my recording that, as I moved between the first and second locations, the hum changes a bit. Then it grows quieter at the third location, and crickets can be heard along with the mosquitoes whose numbers are nearing their apex as the warmer months come to a close.
The audio was recorded with a Rode NT4 and a Zoom H4n, with some finessing using UAD effects. The video recording was made with a Nikon D5100 camera and 50mm lens.
Naviarhaiku112 - The stars that sparkled
The image I've embedded with the track is a detail from my friend Casey Anker's installation at the RE//CONSTRUCTING exhibition, which my partner is also exhibiting work in.
So I've been back to Wagga Wagga again and was tempted to offer a field recording, then decided to use it as atmosphere for the chords I'd been strumming.
My guitar playing isn't very good but I like the way the parts drift, as though it really is a band playing this song. I also like the way it develops from a minor key to a more major one.
700
My 700th post on this blog!
For this special occasion, here's a picture of an orb weaver that was in my garden last week.
Arachnids have been a kind of totem for Bassling, appearing on the cover of my first album SHAKES but less often since. The reason for their disappearance is that I learned how divisive they are, with a significant part of my audience reluctant to pick up a CD with hairy eight-legged artwork!
Arachnids have been a kind of totem for Bassling, appearing on the cover of my first album SHAKES but less often since. The reason for their disappearance is that I learned how divisive they are, with a significant part of my audience reluctant to pick up a CD with hairy eight-legged artwork!
New Field Festival Just Large Empty Drug To Do Music In
My friend and colleague Derek Motion, with whom I collaborated on the video Petrichor last year, posted on my Facebook wall a link to a story on The Onion titled 'New Music Festival Just Large Empty Field To Do Drugs In'.
I think he's giving me a stir about Burning Seed, which I've been going to outside Matong for the last four years, as it's based in a large paddock and people bring their own music and other entertainment.
Anyway, I started riffing on the title of the article, first 'New Drug Festival Just Large Empty Field To Do Music In' and then 'New Field Festival Just Large Empty Drug To Do Music In' and it seemed like a good title for a remix of the field recording I posted on Friday for the Naviar Haiku project this week.
Naviarhaiku111 - After the dancing
The haiku shared for the Naviar project this week immediately made me think of the recordings I'd made last weekend. It was early Saturday morning and I'd set my camera up on the water trough at a property outside Wagga Wagga, knowing that the local birds, bees and wasps would be visiting for a drink as it was reasonably hot.
This is the same set-up that recorded the part used for the Junto this week but a different recording. I regret not using my Zoom H4 with the Rode stereo mic but the VideoMic doesn't sound too bad now I've reduced the hiss.
The haiku reminded me of those mornings when I haven't slept and it feels a bit dreamy seeing a new day start after a night listening to the doof of dance music. Y'know the ones where you still hear the beat long after you've left the party? I considered remixing the recording into a dance track but decided that it was a pleasant immersive experience as it is. I might remix it yet though.
In the video you can see a Willy Wagtail scaring away other birds. He's the black bird seen at the beginning. There are also a bunch of Sparrows and a brief appearance by a Honeyeater, I think. There's a really big wasp that was hanging around, as well as a lot of bees.
As I was watching from afar I could see a Crested Pigeon that was wary of the camera, and you can hear the morning calls of Magpies in the background along with the hum of traffic. The day earlier I'd seen a Double-Barred Finch for the first time and was surprised how tame it seemed, sitting less than a metre away from me.
Disquiet Junto 0216 Thin Layers
The Junto this week asked for an ambient layer to be added to a track from last week. My track builds on S.H.E.'s Tiny Rhythms, which develops wickedly and was an ideal length -- although I did edit it a little by adding fades at start and end.
I've taken the instruction literally and added a recording of the ambiance from where I was staying last weekend. It was early morning when I set my camera recording at a water trough on a hot day, knowing that a variety of birds and bugs would be visiting for a drink.
The idea of using magpies seemed appropriate too, as they're known for mimicking the calls of other birds. I think I've read that they sing back the songs of other birds at the end of the day, although I'm yet to recognise this in their singing. They're also known for attacking people during spring, which led to this entertaining video I made with my son Oscar.
Playing with EMF
We're surrounded by electromagnetic fields yet are rarely made aware of their existence.
The sound of lightsabers in the Star Wars movies famously used a cathode ray television hum, which sounds a bit like EMF recordings of fluorescent lights. I was reminded of this recently when I met an artist named Corrie who was inspired by these lights.
It reminded me that I'd read it's very simple to create a kind of microphone for recording EMFs by using a magnetic coil like the sort found in motors. It also reminded me that I'd saved a couple of these coils for this purpose and it was as easy as soldering a jack onto the red and black wires, leaving the white one that was for earthing.
The video above uses no processing other than adding the EMF recording to the left channel and leaving the right channel with the recording from the camera's mic.
Since making this recording earlier this week I've incorporated it into my Junto and Naviar projects. I'm looking forward to taking it for a walk down the main street of town and hearing how the EMFs sound, which is an idea promoted by Christina Kubisch.
Naviarhaiku110 - After Dream
Then I mentioned it to my partner and she observed the word iris also refers to part of the eye, so then I had another idea.
It got me thinking about those dreams when you're not sure whether you're awake or not and the sense of paranoia that can kick in. The idea of using artificial light made sense and I really wanted to add the EMF recording I'd made to the drums I'd recorded last month, so it came together quickly.
I experimented with a couple of basslines but ended up using a more rock sounding driving rhythm, although I had to clear some space among the lower frequencies. I also gated the EMF hum to pulse with the drums in places for a more 303-sorta sound and added distortion.
Disquiet Junto 0215 Tiny Rhythms
When the Disquiet Junto instructions arrived I was in a projection workshop in Wagga. I'd prepared for recording by packing a few options but in the end didn't get a chance to record. I did, however, have some ideas.
Foremost was an idea to finally get around to playing with EMF. I'd read how to use an old motor coil as a microphone for electromagnetic fields a while ago and, when Corrie had talked on her enthusiasm for fluorescent lights, I'd shared the idea. Last year I'd seen a commercial version but it's very easy to find an old motor and add a jack.
The other idea was to use my contact microphone with containers to add more resonance. One was a wooden box that came with an upmarket brie, the other a reusable coffee cup that had a nice deep kick sorta thump. Onto these I dropped a needle, rice grains, a button and a sunflower seed.
The instruction to not change the sounds meant I didn't spend too much time on it but I've got a great collection of samples to work into something else now. Couldn't help but use gates, EQ and compression though, which may have been cheating but I did resist re-pitchng and delay.
In defense of Youtards
Before I get defensive, let me say that I'm a fan of Chris Randall's writing on his blog and am disappointed that he doesn't share as much of his opinions in recent months. I also use Audio Damage VSTs a lot and there are many unique sounds to be found within them.
Now for the defensive bit. A while back I was introduced to the term 'youtard' while reading his blog and immediately felt self-conscious. To be fair, he does use the term to refer to both Youtube as well as some of the amateur content on there. It is both the medium and the media.
The term felt like a personal slight and that's probably why I still think about it. I've uploaded countless videos of piddling quality. An early outtake from a recording gathered so many criticisms that I hid it for a while and ended up deleting the comments. In hindsight it was quite funny to see a drummer suggesting I was miming along to a drum machine but at the time it grated.
Anyway, I've come to realise that 'youtard' may actually be a fair description. While the noun 'retard' is usually used as an insult these days, the notion of something being 'retarded' as lacking development does still have a certain clinical ring to it. And 'retard' was a perfectly acceptable term in the past to describe various conditions that hinder an individual from reaching their potential.
In this way I feel that I am a 'youtard' as I generally use video as a way of demonstrating and, in doing so, am hindered by being both in front of the camera and behind it. When I studied television production we were encouraged to work in teams and it is often the result that the sum of a group effort exceeds individual contributions.
So I've come to realise that my work is always going to be retarded in a sense but I won't pretend that my music videos are attempting to compete with commercial content. They are, however, an opportunity for me to learn and improve and enjoy seeing a sense of development.
Now for the defensive bit. A while back I was introduced to the term 'youtard' while reading his blog and immediately felt self-conscious. To be fair, he does use the term to refer to both Youtube as well as some of the amateur content on there. It is both the medium and the media.
The term felt like a personal slight and that's probably why I still think about it. I've uploaded countless videos of piddling quality. An early outtake from a recording gathered so many criticisms that I hid it for a while and ended up deleting the comments. In hindsight it was quite funny to see a drummer suggesting I was miming along to a drum machine but at the time it grated.
Anyway, I've come to realise that 'youtard' may actually be a fair description. While the noun 'retard' is usually used as an insult these days, the notion of something being 'retarded' as lacking development does still have a certain clinical ring to it. And 'retard' was a perfectly acceptable term in the past to describe various conditions that hinder an individual from reaching their potential.
In this way I feel that I am a 'youtard' as I generally use video as a way of demonstrating and, in doing so, am hindered by being both in front of the camera and behind it. When I studied television production we were encouraged to work in teams and it is often the result that the sum of a group effort exceeds individual contributions.
So I've come to realise that my work is always going to be retarded in a sense but I won't pretend that my music videos are attempting to compete with commercial content. They are, however, an opportunity for me to learn and improve and enjoy seeing a sense of development.
Naviarhaiku109 - The cool breeze
My track draws on my haiku but the theme is about pantheism and communing with nature. I quite like the line about growing lighter in the shade of a tree.
Inspiration for the song comes from Max Martin and Dr Luke, who have been responsible for a number of the biggest hits in pop music over the last decade. I read a beaut piece at Popbitch about their approach and took a few lessons from it, particularly the opening guitar riff.
The lyrics were written and recorded quickly. I don't consider myself a singer, so they're very much a 'trace' of an idea (to use the term from John Seabrook's book The Song Machine). I don't really consider myself a guitar player either but, anyway, it's a sketchy sketch too.
This track also uses the 3/4 bassline idea that I've been incorporating into various tracks for the last six months or so. And I had the idea that I should also include woodwind instruments, so I added a couple of MIDI clarinets from Ableton Live's sampled instruments.
Cypress pine
move with the wind
create a calm
deep within
In the quiet
empty space
a resonance
fills this place
From the branch
high in the tree
a sound like old tape
is calling me
In the cool shade
I close my eyes
feel a spirit
stir inside
And
Fall away
fall away
all my trouble
and some pain
Fall away
fall away
become distant
and I feel a change
I grow lighter
in the shade
of the tree
where I pray
Here I know
the divine
here I know
peace of mind
It’s my nature
in this space
far away
from the human race
They all
Fall away…
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